Campus Life: Yale; Where French Course Is a Cause Celebre

Published: March 4, 1990

NEW HAVEN—
Call it a case of ''le professeur et la victime'' -only now it is not a lesson in the gender of French nouns. The French course itself is the issue.

Three female students taking introductory French at Yale have filed a sexual-harassment grievance with university officials, claiming that the course, ''French in Action,'' is so sexist that it interferes with their ability to learn the language.

With a petition circulating, a faculty committee investigating and students and professors taking sides, the debate has become the campus cause celebre. More than half the students taking the course have signed the petition supporting the grievance.

Developed in 1987 by Pierre Capretz, the director of Yale's language laboratory, the program being used at Yale has sold about 70,000 textbooks and is used by more than 1,000 colleges and secondary schools nationwide, including Princeton, the State University of New York and the University of Pennsylvania.

The Capretz method, as it is called, aims at ''total immersion'' in the language, using print, audio and visual materials. But French in Action is best known for its series of 52 half-hour tapes, which are also broadcast by dozens of public television stations.

Soap-Opera Romance

In the videos, filmed in Paris, students follow the soap-opera romance of Robert, an American, and Mireille, a French woman. Each episode introduces a few phrases or concepts, which are reinforced by on-screen repetition, classroom practice, writing assignments and weekly tests.

Tracy Blackmer, a senior from Boston majoring in literature who initiated the complaint, and others say the course is ''blatantly sexist.'' In one oft-cited lesson, students observe Jean-Pierre, a pickup artist, harassing Mireille as she sits in a park. On a subsequent test of speaking skills, Ms. Blackmer said, students were required to ''pretend you were trying to pick up a pretty woman in a park.''

She said, ''Not only do you have to learn this, and repeat it in class, but you had to do it for a grade. And if you didn't you'd be penalized.''

In other lessons, professors are always portrayed by men and victims always by women, the protesters say; one scene shows a woman gagged and struggling.

'Wouldn't Change' Anything

Many have criticized the depiction of Mireille as gratuitously sexist. The camera often lingers on the actress's chest and bare legs. ''You're seeing the videotape through a male gaze,'' said one female teaching assistant who asked not to be identified.

The three students who filed the grievance say they want Mr. Capretz to remove offensive scenes from the videos and to devote some class time to discussion - in French - of the problems they see with the course.

But Mr. Capretz, a French native who has taught at Yale since 1956, said he ''wouldn't change any of it.'' To teach French effectively, he said, ''you have to make the students observe the language being used by native speakers, in real situations.''

He said, ''Nothing we show is going to shock anybody in France.''

Ms. Blackmer disagreed. ''It's his interpretation of French culture - a very biased view,'' she said. ''It's a very unflattering picture for French people, as well as insulting to Americans.''

Not all students, or all women, taking French in Action agree with her. ''It doesn't bother me,'' said Lara L. Saario, a senior from Seattle majoring in history. ''If someone isn't perceptive enough to see that this is making fun of French society, then they're blind.''

Miss Saario said the debate is a question of academic freedom. ''I don't see how they can say or dictate what we can say or do in the class,'' she said.

But the teaching assistant who is critical of the course said: ''I teach the course, and hundreds of other people teach it. What about our academic freedom?''

For all the brouhaha, Ms. Blackmer and others admit that the method does work. ''The reason the program is so fabulously successful,'' Mr. Capretz said, ''is that it tries to force students to use the little French which they have mastered so far.''